INTRODUCTION xi 



pages for reassurance in respect to two dangers, of which he 

 did not foresee the imminence, namely, the spread of wire- 

 fencing, and poHtical jealousy of an exclusive sport. Let us 

 hope that fox-hunting may outlive these later perils, as it has 

 survived the earlier ones. 



In one matter the present generation of sportsmen may 

 derive some consolation from Tom Smith's practical treatise. 

 They are accustomed, no doubt, to hear modern principles 

 and practice unfavourably compared with those of a bygone 

 time. In fact, we have all been trained to regard, say, the 

 thirties and forties as the golden age of fox-hunting. They 

 were very good, no doubt, but Mr. Smith did not consider 

 them equal to what had gone before. " It is true," he Elites 

 on page 199, " that old sportsmen beat men of the present 

 day ; they were trained, properly entered to hmiting, and were 

 taught to depend on their own eyes and ears," etc. But there 

 is not too much of this cctas parentum sentiment in Smith's 

 writing, just enough to reassure men of the present day 

 when they hear their performances depreciated by fogies, who 

 would be only too glad to exchange birthdays with them. 

 " The disappointment expressed by Nimrod because the 

 Diary of a Huntsman^ first published in 1838, did not contain 

 more episodes, was mitigated, perhaps, on the appearance five 

 years later of the Life of a Fox. In that lively little work 

 the author has made foxes from various countries recount 

 what were, no doubt, his o^vn experiences in pursuing them. 



Tom Smith not only wrote so well that one is tempted to 

 regret he did not write more, but he was a pretty draughts- 

 man. There have not been many sporting authors whose 

 illustrations stand reproduction so well, for instance, as the 

 drawing of a good and a faulty hound (page 232), or the 

 finish to a good run Avith the Hambledon hounds, depicted at 

 page 252. 



Tom Smith was something more than a fox-hunter; he 

 was a close and accurate observer of nature, and his description 

 of the vie intime of foxes was the outcome of a quick imagina- 



